inFusion Mail Server (iMS) 2.8: A Major Improvement

Dec 08, 2005

by Judith Dinowitz

Sometimes a release contains only one or two new improvements, and at first glance, one might ask, "Why bother to upgrade?" That might have been the case with inFuson Mail Server 2.8, which was released in September, except that those improvements make such difference in the performance of the product that, according to customers and to the makers of the product, IMS 2.8 is an essential upgrade.

"The server speed is much faster," explains Howie Hamlin, Vice-President of On-line Data Solutions (makers of iMS). The two major changes, connection pooling and a redesigned database queue, expand the number of connections the server can handle at one time and greatly improve the speed and throughput of the mail. On-line Data Solutions have not released official benchmarks yet, but they have done some in-house testing of iMS 2.8 versus 2.7. "Our unofficial benchmarks show that 2.8 will send mail over 80% faster than 2.7," said Hamlin. "This testing was performed on test mails on an internal network where all mails were destined to the same domain. In such a case, the server will utilize an established connection, which significantly increases speed. So, if an iMS server were utilized as a list server (which means that several recipients were in the same domain) then the server throughput should increase significantly (although not by the 80% increase, which was under ideal conditions)."

Connection Pooling

Hamlin explained that when iMS receives mail, it has a finite number of connections to process incoming mail. This means that a certain number of emails can be sent to the iMS server at one time. In iMS 2.7, when the connections were all being used, some of the emails would be deferred. Version 2.8 now has a connection pool, which means the emails will sit in a pool and wait until they can be processed.

"For your particular license," said Hamlin, "you'll be able to handle more clients than you would have been able to before. In the previous version, the server would have said that it was too busy and the client would have been disconnected (meaning that the other server would need to retry the mail later on)."

All versions of iMS give between 10 and 1024 connections, and you can set the connection pool percentage from 0 to 100. With Connection Pooling at 100%, iMS 2.8 can handle 2048 connections at one time without a problem.

Redesigned Post Server Queue

For version 2.8, Online Data Solutions redesigned the post server queue with an emphasis on speed and processing improvements. "We took the old queue, tossed it away and replaced it with one that gives you a lot of additional features and speed/processing improvements," said Hamlin.

The primary change is that the new queue is stored in the database rather than in memory. This makes the queue a lot more flexible. "Each email is stored as a job. As the job is completed, the space is marked out as available in the database. And then that space is reused."

Hamlin said that this design gives the customer connection reuse. "If the server is connected to AOL and sends the mail to joe@aol, the old server would have disconnected from AOL even though there was mail waiting to go to mary@aol. Now the server is smart enough to know that it's connected to AOL. It stays there and sends the mail to Mary without disconnecting."

Optional in-RAM Storage

While the iMS queue is now a database residing on disk, customers can optionally set the server to use an in-RAM database as well, and the server can use both at the same time. Most installations wouldn't require using RAM because the disk queue should be fast enough for most applications. If customers choose the dual queue option, new jobs will be put into the memory database, and if the memory database were full, they will be stored in the disk database. "You could say I only want to store 100 jobs in the memory queue, and the 101st job would go into the disk queue," said Hamlin.

Hamlin gave an example where this dual queue option would be useful. If iMS tried to send a message that was in the memory queue and the receiving mailbox was full, the server would try to send the message later. It wouldn't put the message back into the memory queue; it would put it into the disk queue. The memory queue would have only the latest jobs, ensuring timely delivery of email.

Hamlin said that the replacement of the queue makes this version of iMS one of the most significant releases of the product since its inception in March of 1999. "As a program, it has evolved over the years and become more efficient. We're always tweaking it. But once in a while, a significant change comes along ... It was really a significant change when we replaced the queue."

Ease of the Upgrade

Hamlin said that the upgrade from 2.7 to 2.8 is trouble-free. "Everything, including your old code and the mail that's in the queue when you shut down the server, is a seamless upgrade." In addition, Online Data Solutions has posted a new PDF introducing iMS 2.8, available for download at http://www.coolfusion.com/ftp/pub/ods/ims/iMS28Intro.pdf.

Gordon Burns of MD Silverquick Ltd., agreed that the upgrade to iMS 2.8 was quick, painless, and very worthwhile. He said, "I find the new version if iMS to be even better than I had imagined."

"The increase in mail delivery speed has not only been noticed by our IT staff, but by our customers as well. The upgrade was fast and completely seamless; just a software download, and a quick restart of the services."

"All of our existing code continues to run without modification."

"In short... painless upgrade, greatly improved performance, and happy customers. What else can you ask for?"

Phillip Beazley of Onvix.com, a Website Hosting, Development & E-commerce company, said that he loves the new version of iMS. "It was no trouble to install, took a couple of minutes at most and didn't require any code changes. Performance and stability has been excellent. The couple of servers we consider relatively heavy trafficked have fared especially well. I wish more software exhibited such frequent and steady improvement as iMS has over the years... Top that off with excellent support and responsiveness from On-line Data Solutions and it just doesn't get any better."

The Future

What is Hamlin's vision of iMS's future? He said that the next version will contain an SQL-capable version of the post server. "That will allow for a centralized database queue that can be accessed by one or more iMS post servers, which could work in a load sharing of iMS post servers. Once we make that change, your throughput is only limited by your bandwidth and hardware." Hamlin said that this version is already in alpha testing, and would be released either late this year or in early 2006.

Why iMS?

We asked Hamlin why one would choose iMS over competing products. Hamlin said there are no competing products to iMS. "It's the only mail server product that can utilize a web application server like ColdFusion in the way that iMS uses it. The web application server and the underlying code that you can create as a developer tells the mail server what to do. You can create your own features ... Unlike other mail servers that use an API, iMS lets you use something that you're already familiar with. You can take your know-how in ColdFusion and do whatever you want."

Hamlin said that most of his customers are actually ColdFusion programmers. "Some of our customers are selling full-blown applications using iMS. Some of these customers have told us that if it weren't for iMS, they wouldn't have a product to sell."

As Hamlin puts it, "the ability to control the mail server and create applications with a familiar programming language is the biggest benefit of MS."

So Where Do I Get iMS 2.8?

iMS 2.8 comes in several editions, from the Soho (which supports up to 10 simultaneous connections) to the Enterprise (1024 simultaneous connections). You can download a free 60-day trial of the product, and see more about the product and the pricing at http://www.coolfusion.com/products/.

A special thank you to Howie Hamlin, whose interview formed the basis of this article, and to Phillip Beazley and Gordon Burns, two of his customers, who answered my questions patiently.

Copy This Article's Url To Clipboard